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“Spencer told employees that Xboxes would continue to be part of a strategy that involves multiple kinds of devices.”
Image credit: Microsoft / Eurogamer
Xbox is still committed to making consoles, says boss Phil Spencer
Earlier this week, Xbox boss Phil Spencer called an all-staff townhall meeting to address the rumours suggesting that hitherto first-party Xbox games could be released on other platforms, insisting that this did not mean the company wasn’t committed to the Xbox console.
According to journalist Shannon Liao, the meeting – which was held with all internal staff on Tuesday – confirmed that the company was indeed considering bringing first-party games to “multiple kinds of devices”, and more would be revealed publicly next week.
“The company held an internal Tuesday townhall where Spencer told employees that there were no plans to stop making consoles, and that Xboxes would continue to be part of a strategy that involves multiple kinds of devices,” Liao reports, adding that Xbox did not return a request for comment.
good evening! here’s your weekly games journalism industry newsletter, as promised. link? why, you’ll have to do some digging to find that (it’s my full name dot s*bst*ck dot com) pic.twitter.com/cDwbjV1oIu
— Shannon Liao (@Shannon_Liao) February 9, 2024
Earlier this week, following a potentially seismic shift in Microsoft’s approach to its first-party games, Spencer confirmed the company will be sharing its “vision for the future of Xbox” in a “business event” next week.
Yesterday, Microsoft responded to a claim from the FTC that its planned layoff of 1900 people across Xbox and Activision Blizzard goes against what was said in court last year, in regards to how Activision would remain structurally independent.
“In continuing its opposition to the deal, the FTC ignores the reality that the deal itself has substantially changed,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to Eurogamer.
“Since the FTC lost in court last July, Microsoft was required by the UK competition authority to restructure the acquisition globally and therefore did not acquire the cloud streaming rights to Activision Blizzard games in the United States. Additionally, Sony and Microsoft signed a binding agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation on even better terms than Sony had before.”
